Prefab Five

Prefab is an idea that seems to be in the air in New York this summer. As part of its ongoing Buckminster Fuller show the Whitney Museum has a big model of one of Bucky's Dymaxion Houses, his proposal for a prefab. And last night I made it over to the preview of "Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling", a new show at the Museum of Modern Art that opens July 20. As part of the show, MOMA invited five architects or firms to build full scale prefab houses in an empty lot on the western end of the museum. In a way this revives what was once MOMA's occasional practice of having architects build model homes in the museum's sculpture garden. As it happens, in 1941 Bucky himself entered the garden with two interconnected "Dymaxion Deployment Units" — basically a Dymaxion House adapted by the military to house radar equipment and troops.

I've always found prefab an interesting idea that never quite gets off the ground, like the videophone. I'll have more to say about the MoMA show later. For now here are some pics from last night of three of the houses.

First up is Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier's Burst*008. It's built from plywood pieces that are custom cut by a computer controlled saw to allow the house to be fashioned in different ways for different clients

Burst*008, Jeremy Edmiston and Douglas Gauthier/All Photos: LACAYO

Burst*008 Interior, Edmiston and Gauthier

Next is this prototype of housing for New Orleans, modeled after the city's characteristic shotgun houses, many of which fell victim to the lethal combination of Hurricane Katrina and government incompetence. It was designed by Lawrence Sass, a professor at MIT, and his students. Through a system of precut wooden joints and notches, the plywood panels can be fit together without nails or hinges.

Digitally Fabricated Housing for New Orleans, Lawrence Sass

Finally, the Cellophane House by Stephan Kieran and James Timberlake. It has photovoltaic cells embedded within the plastic membrane walls that gather solar energy and conduct it to batteries within the house.

Cellophane House, KieranTimberlake Associates

Apologies to the designers of the other two — the "micro compact home" by Horden Cherry Lee Architects/Haack+ Hopfner Architects and "System3" by Oskar Leo Kaufmann and Albert Ruf — but they might be pleased to know that I couldn't get close enough to get good pictures of their projects because of the crowds around them.